


Give Me Hope in the Darkness

by smaragdbird



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-05-08
Packaged: 2018-06-07 05:23:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6787156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smaragdbird/pseuds/smaragdbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Tony comes into his lab at 3AM and jokes with a smile, "Tell me how wonderful I am," something comes across as... off. Bruce can't quite put his finger on it, but something is wrong. He's not drunk or anything, just... something about his body language.<br/>What Tony's really saying is 'give me reasons not to suicide'. As the only other Avenger that's tried, Tony trusts Bruce's judgement; if the guy blows him off, obviously he's not worth it.<br/>But Bruce doesn't do that. Even if he doesn't know what this is really about, he proceeds to list all the ways that Tony is a great friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Give Me Hope in the Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this ](http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/20763.html?thread=52280603#t52280603) prompt

“Hey”, Tony said when he came into Bruce’s lab. That in itself wasn’t unusual but something about Tony’s demeanour made Bruce look more closely at him. Tension was rolling off him in waves even though he tried to act casually.

“Hey”, Bruce replied. He checked his watch. It was 3am and Tony had attended some party or another tonight. Bruce hadn’t expected him to be back yet. “Boring party?”

Tony shrugged. “The usual.”

“Do you need something or ...” Bruce trailed off. He wouldn’t mind Tony’s company but his behaviour was odd. At first he had thought Tony was drunk but on a second glance it seemed like he wasn’t.

“Tell me how wonderful I am”, Tony demanded, taking a chair and looking at Bruce intently. He reminded Bruce of Betty’s cat when she had been dead set on getting petted right now no matter what else Betty or he might have been doing.

“You mean apart from you being a genius?” Bruce asked but when he looked at Tony he noticed that something seemed…off. It was in his eyes, Bruce couldn’t identify what it was but it was nothing good.

“Apart from that. I already know what obviously.”

“You’re the best friend I’ve ever had”, Bruce said. “You weren’t afraid of me, not even once. You gave me a home, made me believe I could me more than just the Hulk. I could be a scientist again with a lab, with research that’s unrelated to my condition. You trust me to open up about what happened with Kilian and Extremis, I don’t think I ever told you how flattering that was even though I fell asleep mid-story.”

“I thought you didn’t like that.”

Bruce shook his head. “I just thought I was the wrong person to help you.”

“Anything else?” Tony tried to keep his voice light but there was still that strange undercurrent to it. In any other situation Bruce would’ve thought that Tony just needed his ego stroked and Bruce would’ve turned him away with a joke but something told him that tonight this wouldn’t be a good idea.

“Sure”, Bruce said. “You never even think about dumping things down for me even though I’m not an engineer like you. But you trust me to understand you regardless. You treat me like your equal. I can’t even begin to describe how good that feels. You let me do my research and encourage me to publish it because you think of me as a fellow scientist and you did so from the start. You don’t just think of the Hulk as a monster but as something valuable, something more than just a force of sheer destruction and because of that he stopped being a monster.. The only other person who ever did that was Betty.” Bruce swallowed. “You’re a lot more perceptive than most people think. Like when you drew everyone’s attention to you back on the Helicarrier when Fury wanted to lock me up.”

“I didn’t think you’d realise it”, Tony said, surprise colouring his voice.

“I didn’t at the time but in hindsight it became obvious”, Bruce admitted. “Once I knew you better.” He smiled at Tony because suddenly he recognised the look in Tony’s eyes. He had seen it in his own in a bathroom mirror in a Canadian shack before he had pulled the trigger. “You’re very generous because it’s the easiest way for you to show that you care. You let me hand you things even though you don’t do that with most people. After New York you let me go because you knew I wasn’t ready to stay yet. And when I was you welcomed me with open arms. You let me study your arc reactor and Extremis. You even let me look at JARVIS programming. You trust me and I’m really glad I met you. Without you my life would be miserable just like it had been since the incident. You saved me in every way one human can save another. That’s how wonderful you are.”

When Bruce ended Tony looked even more vulnerable than before and Bruce pulled him into a hug. 

“Thanks”, Tony whispered into Bruce’s ear and held on tightly.

“Thank you”, Bruce replied sincerely. “Now do you want to go to bed or help me develop a water filter that also filters human pathogens?”

Tony grinned at him. “Show me what you’ve got.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me [ here](http://smaragdbird.tumblr.com/) on tumblr


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